For the eighth time now, Birmingham National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in the UK plays host to the International IPEX Exhibition; the printing industry’s opportunity to come together, demonstrate new products and innovations and explore future business opportunities. This year, IPEX will be taking place slightly later than usual, between 18th and the 25th of May 2010, to avoid any possible collision with UK and international holidays. And with no reason to miss it, IPEX 2010 is looking like it could be the largest yet, with over 1000 exhibiting companies, from more than 40 different countries. Between them, they’ll be occupying an impressive gross floor space of 100,000 square metres, across 11 adjoining exhibition halls. But what should really get the industry talking about this year, is the quite unprecedented explosion of exhibitors from the digital printing sector, with ‘Digital Print’ now occupying an astonishing 38% of the IPEX’ total floor space. Here, we’ll take a look at the changing face of IPEX and assess just what this increasingly influential global showcase can tell us about the state of the printing industry today.

Canon Copiers is delighted to announce this week the introduction of two new commercial digital printers, the imageRUNNER Advance 6000 series and the imageRUNNER Advance 8000 series. They complete what is already a very impressive battery of Canon commercial printers in the award-winning imageRUNNER Advance line-up. Last year saw the introduction of the C5000 series, the C7000 series and the C9060 and C9070 PRO which offer advanced digital printing to workgroups, departments and central reprographics departments alike. The new imageRUNNER Advance 6000 and imageRUNNER Advance 8000 bring all the same platform benefits as other imageRUNNER Advance machines – bio plastic structure, enhanced security options and user interface personalisation – while also offering manifold improvements over the older iR5000 and iR7000 mono models they’re replacing. The iR6000 provides professional monochrome digital printing suitable for short run printing, while the iR8000 offers digital mono printing in the light production category suitable for commercial printing.

Canon Copiers is pleased to announce the release of a new expanded range of Canon compact black and white A3 multifunction printers (MFP’s) – the long-awaited imageRUNNER 2500 series. The new range has been designed to provide the very best in cost-effective and productive printing, incorporating state-of-the-art scanners, printers and copiers into one device suitable in small-to-medium sized workgroups and organisations.

A recent study, ‘Redefinition of the Digital Printer’ sponsored by Canon and conducted by Professor Emeritus, Frank Romano, provides a snapshot at the state of the printing industry under the impact of the current economic climate, with the final analysis due to be published in May 2010.